Saturday, October 29, 2016

Elevation & Shadow Mapping

The Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalunya has developed a prototype terrain explorer for their 2 meter Digital Elevation Model of Catalonia. The Institute's Relief and Shadow map, created from Lidar data, allows you to view and interact in real-time with a relief map of the area.

Using Relief and Shadow you can explore the DEM model of Catalonia in an interactive Leaflet & Mapzen powered map. The map includes an impressive tool which allows you to color the terrain by elevation and by the direction of the sun. This tool allows you to change the appearance of the map in real-time by painting within an interactive compass rose.

Using the color-picker tool with the interactive compass rose you can paint the terrain on the map to highlight different elevation data and different directions of light. The center of the compass rose represents lower elevations on the map and the elevations become higher as you move to the circumference.

Relief and Shadow is partly based on Mapzen's Sphere Map Demo. You can learn more about how Mapzen developed their 'sphere maps' tool on this Mapzen Sphere Maps blog post.